The assertion that H-1B workers are paid less than their domestic counterparts is one that some observers disagree with. The point out that U.S. companies are required by law to pay H1-B workers the prevailing American wage for that position.

But some U.S. companies find a way around this, Miano says. The specific rules say, theres supposed to be a prevailing wage source, its supposed to be a good source thats based upon occupation and location. Yet some employers use a national survey of college graduates, which shows wages of inexperienced workers, he says.

The prevailing wage claim averages about $18,000 a year less, than the American counterpart, Miano says. In actual wages, this translates to salaries for H-1B workers that are about $12,000 less than comparable American workers. (So some employers can claim they are paying H-1B workers a higher salary than the prevailing wage.) The bottom line, by Mianos calculation: The majority of their wages are in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages, of computer industry workers. (He details his research about lower pay for H-1B worker in this paper.)

For the many American tech staffers who deplore the rise of offshoring, Miano gives voice to their discontent. As he tells it, shipping work overseas is a twin evil with hiring an H-1B worker in the U.S. The major culprit in both scenarios is misinformed IT management that doesnt understand the value of American talent.

In general, I think H-1B and offshoring represent stupidity within the industry, he says. I think theyre systematic of much larger problems.

One of the main problems: The industry is dominated by people who don't know how to manage software. The failure rate of software projects is high, and the cost of software is perceived as too expensive.

So you look at it: how do you reduce the cost of software? If youre one of these accountants or former marketing people who learned how to talk the IT buzzwords, and managed to work your way into a CIO position, you face a problem: I need to either find people who can do the same thing for cheaper, or I have to do software development more efficiently.

Faced with such a dilemma, the average IT manager is lost, he says. Theyre going to say I have no idea about doing things more efficiently, but I hear there are all these guys over in India and China who are real cheap. Lets bring them!

Yet in reality, offshoring is no panacea, he says.

You hear about the wonders of offshoring, its the same thing, you can get cheaper bodies over there. But from what Ive seen in offshoring, personally, Ive never seen offshoring successes. He cites an anecdote about a company that shifted money from domestic projects to offshoring, even though the overseas work was a losing venture. Why? he asked the banker. Oh, were going to keep offshoring because thats what Wall Street expects us to do.